The Back Connect (BTF) Connector: A Game-Changer for Cable Management?

As I held the new BTF connector in my hand, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and curiosity. This innovative technology promises to revolutionize the way we think about cable management in our computers, and I was eager to see it in action.

The first thing that struck me was the design itself. The connector is sleek and minimalist, with a clean and simple layout that makes it easy to understand its purpose. As I examined it further, I noticed that it has a 12-volt high power connector on the back side, which is perfect for powering graphics cards. However, there's no 12-volt high power connector on the front side, which means that the motherboard won't have any issues with power delivery.

This got me thinking about the implications of this new technology. With BTF connectors, we can expect to see a significant reduction in cable clutter and mess. The back connect style also eliminates the need for cables going to the motherboard from the front side, which is a major problem that many users face. As I mentioned earlier, some power supply units (PSUs) have had issues with 12-volt high power connectors, but the BTF connector alleviates these problems.

One of the main advantages of BTF connectors is their aesthetic appeal. They add a touch of sophistication and modernity to any computer build, making it look like a work of art rather than a cluttered mess. However, this comes with a price tag - new cases that support BTF connectors are not yet widely available, and they tend to be more expensive than standard ATX layout motherboards.

Despite the current lack of availability, I believe that BTF connectors will become the future standard for computer case design. Many case manufacturers have already announced plans to support BTF connectors in their upcoming cases, and it's only a matter of time before we see widespread adoption. As companies like Asus continue to innovate and push the boundaries of what's possible with BTF connectors, I'm confident that we'll see a significant shift towards this new technology.

In my opinion, the main reason why BTF connectors are appealing is that they eliminate the need for cables going to the motherboard from the front side. This is a major problem that many users face, and it's great to see someone addressing it with such innovation. However, I also think that BTF connectors offer other benefits beyond just aesthetics.

One of the things that struck me about BTF connectors was how rigid they are. The PCB (Printed Circuit Board) design makes a direct connection between the graphics card and the motherboard, which eliminates any potential issues with 12-volt high power connectors. This is especially important for users who plan to upgrade their graphics cards or motherboards in the future.

As I continued to examine the BTF connector, I realized that it's not just about aesthetics - it's also about functionality. The design is well-thought-out and takes into account all the potential issues that users might face when building a computer with this new technology. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a beginner, BTF connectors offer a range of benefits that make them an attractive option.

For those who are thinking of upgrading to a BTF or back connect motherboard, I would say that it's worth considering. The extra cost associated with these motherboards may seem steep at first, but trust me - it's worth it in the long run. Not only do they offer improved aesthetics and functionality, but they also alleviate many of the problems that users face when building a computer.

One thing to keep in mind is that not all cases will support BTF connectors, so you'll need to make sure your case can accommodate this new technology. The depth of the back of the case is also important, as thick cables might push against the side panel if they stick out too much. However, even with deeper cases like dual-chamber designs, there may still be limitations on available depth.

As I wrapped up my examination of the BTF connector, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement for this new technology. While it's not yet widely available, I'm confident that it will become the future standard for computer case design. Whether you're a seasoned pro or a beginner, BTF connectors offer a range of benefits that make them an attractive option.

Thanks for watching, guys! If you have any questions or comments about BTF connectors, be sure to let me know in the comments section below.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enall right so we're going to talk about something today it's been out for a while I know it's not new it's my first time taking a look at it so we'll take you guys along for the ride no it's not about this case this is just what MSI sent we're going to take a look at their project zero stuff this is where they've Asus and MSI were the first to the market to come up with the idea of putting cables and plugs on the back side of the motherboard to just clean up the front side of the case even more and not have wires and stuff showing so they sent me over their project zero motherboard um which has said Fe feur and then Asus has what they call their U BTF which stands for Back to Front I don't have any of those to take a look at I don't know why they sent me these fans but okay um so we're take a look at this today this is the z790 project zero NZXT is a quick and easy way to get a new gaming computer build a gaming PC on your budget using the built-in configurator and see exactly how your favorite games will perform and if you don't want to spec it yourself then choose from nxt's preconfigured player PC systems designed to fit your needs and budget and now NZXT is proud to announce NZXT Flex a PC gaming subscription service with no commitments with upgrades every 2 years and comprehensive customer support with active subscriptions to see the full lineup of NZXT PCS and flex options follow the sponsored Link in the description below so obviously the z790 chipset would be a top tier chipset um been using mother uh MSI motherboards on our test benches now for a while or at least our Intel test bench I've been pretty happy with it so here we are project zero oh I guess this is so one thing you may may not know when MSI sends a motherboard they show the full testing like stuff and overview of the motherboard it's actually really nice it's a nice sheet normally it's just a wrinkly sheet of paper but we're not testing the motherboard today we're not even going to fire it up I'm just curious as to what this is going to look like installed in the case um a lot of case manufacturers are now starting to incorporate BTF project zero type of uh we'll take a look at the case when we get it out passrs because obviously you have to be able to get the cables to the back side of the case so if you if your case does not have support for BTF or project zero then it's not going to be compatible at all cuz if you look at the motherboard from the traditional side that's actually pretty sexy motherboard all the brushed aluminum I don't care for the project zero but if that wasn't there it'd look really clean and minimalistic MSI tends to really lead into the dragon stuff if you know what I'm saying so there's no dragon anywhere on here which I think looks awesome it's one of the things I hate most about MSI motherboards always a dragon logo and stuff but ditch the big project zero just leave it right here and I think that that would have looked super slick obviously the connectors and everything as you can see are on the backside including USB 3.0 um USBC our SATA our fans our front side connectors USBS uh temperature probes our front side connectors I already said our EPS everything's on the back there is not a single cable on the front side of the motherboard so the only thing you would actually need to plug into the front side at all be your graphics card your storage RAM and CPU now one thing that project zero doesn't have that BTF has and this is where Asus I think is a little bit Superior in this aspect is they also have BTF connectors for the graphics card so for 40 series graphics cards and the 4090 I think this probably works well I don't know I haven't done any of sort of connector testing to see what the power draw through the BTF connector for the graphics card is but they actually have another plug right here that looks like a PCI Express and it looks like a short PCI Express is actually the power delivery for the graphics card so the PCI express1 12vt 12vt high power I'm not sure which connector they use I assume it's 12vt high power plugs into the back side of the motherboard and then just pushes right through to that connector and then feeds the graphics card so even the graphics card doesn't have a wire showing on the front side of the Asus cards that's where I think MSI is a little behind on the BTF and/ project zero type stuff now obviously this isn't a standard ATX is a standard right these these cables right here the EPS 12vt high power cables it's just four 12 volts and four grounds 24 pin um all this stuff is like a new it's a standard now when it comes to power supply connectors and stuff but the layout itself is not standardized so it'll be interesting to see how other motherboards start to incorporate this as the sort of catches on which is going to put a lot of stress on the case manufacturers cuz the more holes you add to the motherboard tray of a case the more the less rigidity you're going to have so I'm curious to to see how many different iterations of Back to Front type connectors uh will be able to support in the future without having the case basically be a flimsy piece of metal all right let me get this case unboxed um I'm not sure if we have any other cases here that actually support um backside connectors I'll take a look at our inventory and see cuz obviously the MSI cases are going to have to support their own product question is whether or not they're going to support other competitors like say Asus and their BTF standards so let me get this out and see what it looks like once we get the uh the stuff installed so we'll start with their the MSI Pano 100 lpz I don't know what the pz stands for it doesn't look like 100 liters either but whatever I digress what do I know um so here you can see all the cutouts it looks like it actually would support BTF as well not just um their own project zero and that's I'm feeling that way because of this cutout right here so you can see how it's in line with the PCI Express slot as well as right here um interestingly enough this is not really a case review but I'm going to talk about it anyway and these are put on with Hulk fingers apparently it comes preset up for vertical Mount and you can mount the vertical Mount right to this plate right here but it doesn't come with the Riser cable so since it doesn't come with the Riser cable we have to convert it back to a standard Mount which at least comes with the case so this just pops out it's got the Riser or not the Riser but the support for it already on there we can literally take this guy put it in there we go so in terms of the rigidity though it's pretty rigid like I was worried that this was going to be really flimsy considering how much materials removed to support obviously the back to front excuse me project zero it really is back to front I I like asus's naming better than project zero the idea is Project zero cables but the problem is there's still a GPU cable so it's not project zero it's project 95% so anyway if we put this in here like this o and you need to make sure everything lines up when you go to push it in otherwise you're going to like flatten some cables so as long as you or pins I should say as long as you line up the io on the back side right here everything should theoretically line up just fine so here's the motherboard installed unfortunately because the case has to also support non project zero and BTF motherboards you get these additional holes which really are useless except for maybe the fans right and the grommets too yeah the grommets here I mean they have to have full support right so if we turn around and look on the back side though uh you can see if you have so this is where things could start to get maybe a little bit crammed if you will because now we only have to go from our power supply to here so if we open the bottom right here which I have to undo these this thumb screw we have an area that we can at least sort of you know hide the cables and and sort of get them out of the way which is which is down here but then if you have a jumble of cables here we still have to connect any argb down here fan headers um SATA ports there SATA ports there so everything back here it's now going to be kind of a jumbled mess behind the motherboard like this is something that I didn't really think about when I was going oh yeah hiding all the cables in the back that sounds like a great idea but because of the fact that usually you have to run your cables around you have that length and something to do with them you can hide other cables right here but now the cable routing area directly covers the stuff that we don't want to interfere with so for instance you see where these these um these straps are these velcro straps they're that's where you're you're supposed to kind of cable manage your cables but they would be right on top of this now USB 3.0 pretty solid USB C like this connector you can easily like torque that and break it so here's our USBC stop stop closing okay so here's our USBC right here I guess that's not too terribly in the way either us or again oh God it's going to do the thing where it's going to try and pull the whole socket out okay so here's our USB 3 right here also not too terribly in the way we have all this slack to deal with so you could sort of zip tie this kind of like that and out of the way you can see our us are u 2 and 1 half in Drive sleds are right here so anything you start tucking in down here make sure if you're going to use these sleds that they're not interfering otherwise maybe remove the sleds entirely but there's that right there uh what do we got here here's the USBC this is a just a kind of a heavy duty ribbon cable so we plug this guy in does anyone else think it's incredibly ironic that USBC itself can turn either direction but the cable plugging into it for the motherboard can't like this really goes one way just's that way if you flip it around the other way it doesn't fit so we just think that's odd that it works one way but not the other on the motherboard side but it can go either direction on the plug side so this one you can see is kind of like weird right it wants to so I guess you could sort of do that like that I guess sure that's kind of okay now I really do have to install a power supply right now otherwise right cuz there's that's cool but now we need to see how much room we actually have between our power supply here I guess it won't be too bad the cables can just come down here and then come back up as long as we can still access everything down here not have anything get hooked on it especially like the sleeving on power supplies like has a lot of holes in it and we be that good get hooked on one these pins and Yanks and bends it real bad could potentially break a pin off the back side of the motherboard so let's just randomly grab a power supply all right so this is just a black rolt um X from fantex not incredibly long fortunately power supplies are getting shorter these days so you can see we have all this extra cable length we sort of have to deal with right now so here's our 24 pin so I guess I'll just kind of like that I guess that's so weird to so you can see the motherboard flexing I didn't put in all the standoffs normally I'm used to pushing down on the cable against the standoff so the motherboard has is firm but like it's just weird pushing against those screws okay so I guess that could go like that that's really not too bad but you see look already that was pushing on the argb cable right there so you would definitely want to zip tie this stuff together keep it nice and sort of tucked and out of the way um I only have one c c few header on this one plugged in right now that's fine for demonstration purposes there's that once again we could choose to take the slack and bring it down that way that way it's not showing through the holes on the top cuz it still has to have compatibility for non back to front but this is the unfortunate thing about the way MSI has designed these cards is you still have this guy pretend it's a 12vt high power or 12vt 2x6 or 6x2 whatever the hell they call it now so this still has to make its way to the front for any potentially installed power or graphics card so now this kind of looks stupid like you got this one cable now right oh well I guess you have to have that cuz I mean the thing is unless you're going to run out and buy an Asus branded graphics card specifically for its BTF functionality you're still going to have to have something plugged into to your graphics card so I guess if you can just sort of like yes I know this is a PC Express cable and not a 12vt so I guess you can just sort of maybe route it a way that doesn't look stupid that's still cleaner than having other cables going everywhere but fortunately though most cases because of the fact that if the 12vt was right here and the grommets right there you just have this short little cable run anyway and then yeah you don't have them showing up here for the 8vt or the EPS power but that's pretty convenient though if you've ever installed in a case let's say you've put your motherboard in you got your CPU Cooler on there you've mounted if it's an AIO you've mounted the radiator it's right here or if you have a big like multi- Tower air cooler that's blocking the cable and you go oh crap I forgot to plug in my EPS then you're taking off your cooler or your rat or something to plug it in it's definitely more convenient to just do it after the fact right there so it's definitely got some pros for it um so clean it is very clean I mean it would even cleaner and more stealthy if that were on all blacked out motherboard black graphics card and stuff but yeah I me but you you can imagine if it didn't have a power cable going for the power supply which is where the BTF form factor would be super clean for like the way Asus has it that'd be it there'd be no cables at all the exception of the fan cables so that's actually super super clean this isn't a case review for for MSI um seems like a pretty solid case though there's a lot of things I don't like about this case though for instance on the bottom if we look down here we do have a fan filter which appear this one on the bottom is magnetic this entire case really is intended for bottom to top airf flow you do have this motherboard tray area that you could utilize but I think for for cleanliness Aesthetics and stuff I would prefer this to just be like a blocked off plate or at least have a a Clean Plate to block it if you weren't going to use it as air flow have your three fans on the bottom blowing air up fresh air right to the graphics card and then obviously three exhaust fans on the top um and maybe a a re exhaust if you need to the top however so this is the top panel not the greatest paracity you got these long sort of C not cylindrical but these rectangular vents with a fairly thin opening versus the amount of blocked off area there is and you have this um this fan filter which is glued in so you can actually remove the fan filter personally if I were using the top as exhaust I would not want the fan filter here I would just want the best air flow for exhaust because the intake fans are responsible for the fan filtering or the air filtering not the exhaust yeah that's I mean it's it's pretty cheap and it came off in one old piece so there I'd much rather have this especially given how poor I feel like this ventilation design is it is a little raised as you can see so it's got this kind of a peak right here which adds a little bit of volume between the top where the fans are and the exhaust so that helps a little bit actually with getting that air exhaust out but I would prefer that to have maybe matched the same sort of a digital design it has going here for the rest of the filt or the rest of the ventilation this is the back panel right here again the same glued in well this just a pull on this one okay so this one at least can come out there it goes so yeah it's got this sort of a digital look to it with these little blocked out squares and stuff pretty neat looking I guess but it's like edgy it's like MSI is like bro we're edgy you know we don't just have dragons anyway I think it is actually pretty clean um and then obviously the case itself if your case supports it there is a list online you can find of cases that currently support uh project Z BTF I mentioned the F v270 we'll take a look at that one real quick in my opinion the cougar case is superior to the MSI one we just took a look at um but anyway the best way to identify if a case you're looking at is supports or supports the BTF SL project zero um form factor is if you see all these extra cutouts specifically this one these three this one this one this one the ones on the bottom are always going to be there for the front side connectors you know for every single motherboard so these bottom cutouts should always be there but this one this one this one this one and these three really tell us that this is a a um project z/ BTF case so I also wouldn't go purely off the list that's online the reason why I say that this case isn't listed on that list so look at the pictures that's the best way to truly identify if it's project zero um supported so I'm going to take that motherboard out real quick and throw it in here as well as with the white um 4080 right right here just to see how it looks in a more appropriate kind of an aesthetic setting for that motherboard one thing I want to point out too with the back connect stuff is every time I go to grab it I'm I'm used to grabbing it like this and it stabs me every time I grab it because it's like I tend to grab it from the bottom or the top and either way I'm getting stabbed so I just want to point that out it it's like I just did it again I just did it again no matter where you grab it from the back it's going to stab you like old habits die hard so there it is it's actually really really sexy um I do like the way this looks a lot it's just unfortunate that we would still have a 12volt high power cable by using um project zero motherboard again right now there's only two manufacturers currently I think that are making backconnect motherboards and that is uh MSI and Asus I'm sure gigabyte is on the horizon it'll be interesting to see how they do this though the downside about like Asus having the BTF connect format for the graphics cards is if you're just shopping and you're not paying attention that it says BTF on it then you'll get the graphics card and it won't slot in your motherboard because that tab will be there and there's no 12volt high power connector on it at all but there is what it looks like on the back side so as you can see yeah everything clears it's pretty standard format I mean as long as they stay Within These guidelines of where everything is supposed to land there you go and then because our power supply in this case is all the way in the bottom that'll take up some of the length we need now the thing to think about here is the depth of the back of the case is important because if you have a real thick cable that has to make a Bend and then bend again if it sticks out then it might push against your side panel real hard just keep that in mind the deeper like the uh dual chamber cases like the Leon Leo 11 type cases that have a big back chamber will be the most compatible cuz they have the biggest depth but this will have a little bit less available depth to it but I can I can tell that we have at least an inch right here which would be enough for a normal cable to be able to make the bend but that looks so good let's talk about whether not I recommend this though pros and cons of it pro it looks super clean and it doesn't matter if your power supply has maybe not the greatest looking cables um the downside of this though is the fact that requires basically building an entirely new setup so I really think it only appeals or should appeal to someone that's building a computer from scratch meaning because you're going to have to buy a new case to support the motherboard and then the motherboard obviously needs to be the the back connect style now if we're talking about Asus stuff that means you also are going to buy a new graphics card because you want to take advantage of the BTF connector for the graphics card as well in fact I personally like asus's implementation more and I know I've already said that and that's only because it truly gets rid of every cable going to the motherboard from the front side period and the extra connector though if Done Right alleviates any of the 12 power connector problems that we've seen because you have a rigid PCB making a direct connection just like the PCI Express slot so that's preferred in my opinion I think it alleviates some of those problems but now you're talking new graphics card new motherboard new case so that's why I say if it's somebody that's building the case from scratch or the the system from scratch it makes the most sense um also two if you want to upgrade to a BTF or back connect motherboard that's the overall ter terminology is back connect then um a new case is going to pretty much be required like I said there's not very many cases on the market probably less than 12 that actually support bconnect but this might become the future standard who knows I I think every case moving forward from 2024 and Beyond will probably support back connect because I know several case manufacturers were talking with right now on some upcoming cases that aren't out yet are all and that's the question I've been asking is does it support back connect and the answer is yes pretty much every case is being adapted in future revisions to support back connect stuff but it's a it's a new standard that's all about Aesthetics and if you're one of those people that's like I don't even want a window in my case I don't even care what the inside looks like I just want the function over the form then none of this appeals to you anyway and it's extra cost associated with it of course because the reason being if we were to see what the sales figures were or are of current back connect motherboards versus standard ATX layout motherboards I bet you it's like it's got to be low single- digigit adoption right now it's got to be but it might become the new thing in the future who knows and then companies that make custom cables are probably pissing their pants right now going uhoh what do we do because they're not they can't see our cables anymore so sometimes Innovation leaves some current stuff behind so I guess we'll just have to wait and see all right guys thanks for watching I just wanted to take you guys along for the ride of me taking a look at back connect stuff in person for the first time I know this debuted at like compex last year and then CES again and then obviously 2024 this stuff made it to Market and is like fully available now but even at Micro Center when we there shopping I didn't notice any of these motherboards there so I really am curious as to how widespread they are in availability um anyway there you go thanks for watching guys as always we'll see you in the next oneall right so we're going to talk about something today it's been out for a while I know it's not new it's my first time taking a look at it so we'll take you guys along for the ride no it's not about this case this is just what MSI sent we're going to take a look at their project zero stuff this is where they've Asus and MSI were the first to the market to come up with the idea of putting cables and plugs on the back side of the motherboard to just clean up the front side of the case even more and not have wires and stuff showing so they sent me over their project zero motherboard um which has said Fe feur and then Asus has what they call their U BTF which stands for Back to Front I don't have any of those to take a look at I don't know why they sent me these fans but okay um so we're take a look at this today this is the z790 project zero NZXT is a quick and easy way to get a new gaming computer build a gaming PC on your budget using the built-in configurator and see exactly how your favorite games will perform and if you don't want to spec it yourself then choose from nxt's preconfigured player PC systems designed to fit your needs and budget and now NZXT is proud to announce NZXT Flex a PC gaming subscription service with no commitments with upgrades every 2 years and comprehensive customer support with active subscriptions to see the full lineup of NZXT PCS and flex options follow the sponsored Link in the description below so obviously the z790 chipset would be a top tier chipset um been using mother uh MSI motherboards on our test benches now for a while or at least our Intel test bench I've been pretty happy with it so here we are project zero oh I guess this is so one thing you may may not know when MSI sends a motherboard they show the full testing like stuff and overview of the motherboard it's actually really nice it's a nice sheet normally it's just a wrinkly sheet of paper but we're not testing the motherboard today we're not even going to fire it up I'm just curious as to what this is going to look like installed in the case um a lot of case manufacturers are now starting to incorporate BTF project zero type of uh we'll take a look at the case when we get it out passrs because obviously you have to be able to get the cables to the back side of the case so if you if your case does not have support for BTF or project zero then it's not going to be compatible at all cuz if you look at the motherboard from the traditional side that's actually pretty sexy motherboard all the brushed aluminum I don't care for the project zero but if that wasn't there it'd look really clean and minimalistic MSI tends to really lead into the dragon stuff if you know what I'm saying so there's no dragon anywhere on here which I think looks awesome it's one of the things I hate most about MSI motherboards always a dragon logo and stuff but ditch the big project zero just leave it right here and I think that that would have looked super slick obviously the connectors and everything as you can see are on the backside including USB 3.0 um USBC our SATA our fans our front side connectors USBS uh temperature probes our front side connectors I already said our EPS everything's on the back there is not a single cable on the front side of the motherboard so the only thing you would actually need to plug into the front side at all be your graphics card your storage RAM and CPU now one thing that project zero doesn't have that BTF has and this is where Asus I think is a little bit Superior in this aspect is they also have BTF connectors for the graphics card so for 40 series graphics cards and the 4090 I think this probably works well I don't know I haven't done any of sort of connector testing to see what the power draw through the BTF connector for the graphics card is but they actually have another plug right here that looks like a PCI Express and it looks like a short PCI Express is actually the power delivery for the graphics card so the PCI express1 12vt 12vt high power I'm not sure which connector they use I assume it's 12vt high power plugs into the back side of the motherboard and then just pushes right through to that connector and then feeds the graphics card so even the graphics card doesn't have a wire showing on the front side of the Asus cards that's where I think MSI is a little behind on the BTF and/ project zero type stuff now obviously this isn't a standard ATX is a standard right these these cables right here the EPS 12vt high power cables it's just four 12 volts and four grounds 24 pin um all this stuff is like a new it's a standard now when it comes to power supply connectors and stuff but the layout itself is not standardized so it'll be interesting to see how other motherboards start to incorporate this as the sort of catches on which is going to put a lot of stress on the case manufacturers cuz the more holes you add to the motherboard tray of a case the more the less rigidity you're going to have so I'm curious to to see how many different iterations of Back to Front type connectors uh will be able to support in the future without having the case basically be a flimsy piece of metal all right let me get this case unboxed um I'm not sure if we have any other cases here that actually support um backside connectors I'll take a look at our inventory and see cuz obviously the MSI cases are going to have to support their own product question is whether or not they're going to support other competitors like say Asus and their BTF standards so let me get this out and see what it looks like once we get the uh the stuff installed so we'll start with their the MSI Pano 100 lpz I don't know what the pz stands for it doesn't look like 100 liters either but whatever I digress what do I know um so here you can see all the cutouts it looks like it actually would support BTF as well not just um their own project zero and that's I'm feeling that way because of this cutout right here so you can see how it's in line with the PCI Express slot as well as right here um interestingly enough this is not really a case review but I'm going to talk about it anyway and these are put on with Hulk fingers apparently it comes preset up for vertical Mount and you can mount the vertical Mount right to this plate right here but it doesn't come with the Riser cable so since it doesn't come with the Riser cable we have to convert it back to a standard Mount which at least comes with the case so this just pops out it's got the Riser or not the Riser but the support for it already on there we can literally take this guy put it in there we go so in terms of the rigidity though it's pretty rigid like I was worried that this was going to be really flimsy considering how much materials removed to support obviously the back to front excuse me project zero it really is back to front I I like asus's naming better than project zero the idea is Project zero cables but the problem is there's still a GPU cable so it's not project zero it's project 95% so anyway if we put this in here like this o and you need to make sure everything lines up when you go to push it in otherwise you're going to like flatten some cables so as long as you or pins I should say as long as you line up the io on the back side right here everything should theoretically line up just fine so here's the motherboard installed unfortunately because the case has to also support non project zero and BTF motherboards you get these additional holes which really are useless except for maybe the fans right and the grommets too yeah the grommets here I mean they have to have full support right so if we turn around and look on the back side though uh you can see if you have so this is where things could start to get maybe a little bit crammed if you will because now we only have to go from our power supply to here so if we open the bottom right here which I have to undo these this thumb screw we have an area that we can at least sort of you know hide the cables and and sort of get them out of the way which is which is down here but then if you have a jumble of cables here we still have to connect any argb down here fan headers um SATA ports there SATA ports there so everything back here it's now going to be kind of a jumbled mess behind the motherboard like this is something that I didn't really think about when I was going oh yeah hiding all the cables in the back that sounds like a great idea but because of the fact that usually you have to run your cables around you have that length and something to do with them you can hide other cables right here but now the cable routing area directly covers the stuff that we don't want to interfere with so for instance you see where these these um these straps are these velcro straps they're that's where you're you're supposed to kind of cable manage your cables but they would be right on top of this now USB 3.0 pretty solid USB C like this connector you can easily like torque that and break it so here's our USBC stop stop closing okay so here's our USBC right here I guess that's not too terribly in the way either us or again oh God it's going to do the thing where it's going to try and pull the whole socket out okay so here's our USB 3 right here also not too terribly in the way we have all this slack to deal with so you could sort of zip tie this kind of like that and out of the way you can see our us are u 2 and 1 half in Drive sleds are right here so anything you start tucking in down here make sure if you're going to use these sleds that they're not interfering otherwise maybe remove the sleds entirely but there's that right there uh what do we got here here's the USBC this is a just a kind of a heavy duty ribbon cable so we plug this guy in does anyone else think it's incredibly ironic that USBC itself can turn either direction but the cable plugging into it for the motherboard can't like this really goes one way just's that way if you flip it around the other way it doesn't fit so we just think that's odd that it works one way but not the other on the motherboard side but it can go either direction on the plug side so this one you can see is kind of like weird right it wants to so I guess you could sort of do that like that I guess sure that's kind of okay now I really do have to install a power supply right now otherwise right cuz there's that's cool but now we need to see how much room we actually have between our power supply here I guess it won't be too bad the cables can just come down here and then come back up as long as we can still access everything down here not have anything get hooked on it especially like the sleeving on power supplies like has a lot of holes in it and we be that good get hooked on one these pins and Yanks and bends it real bad could potentially break a pin off the back side of the motherboard so let's just randomly grab a power supply all right so this is just a black rolt um X from fantex not incredibly long fortunately power supplies are getting shorter these days so you can see we have all this extra cable length we sort of have to deal with right now so here's our 24 pin so I guess I'll just kind of like that I guess that's so weird to so you can see the motherboard flexing I didn't put in all the standoffs normally I'm used to pushing down on the cable against the standoff so the motherboard has is firm but like it's just weird pushing against those screws okay so I guess that could go like that that's really not too bad but you see look already that was pushing on the argb cable right there so you would definitely want to zip tie this stuff together keep it nice and sort of tucked and out of the way um I only have one c c few header on this one plugged in right now that's fine for demonstration purposes there's that once again we could choose to take the slack and bring it down that way that way it's not showing through the holes on the top cuz it still has to have compatibility for non back to front but this is the unfortunate thing about the way MSI has designed these cards is you still have this guy pretend it's a 12vt high power or 12vt 2x6 or 6x2 whatever the hell they call it now so this still has to make its way to the front for any potentially installed power or graphics card so now this kind of looks stupid like you got this one cable now right oh well I guess you have to have that cuz I mean the thing is unless you're going to run out and buy an Asus branded graphics card specifically for its BTF functionality you're still going to have to have something plugged into to your graphics card so I guess if you can just sort of like yes I know this is a PC Express cable and not a 12vt so I guess you can just sort of maybe route it a way that doesn't look stupid that's still cleaner than having other cables going everywhere but fortunately though most cases because of the fact that if the 12vt was right here and the grommets right there you just have this short little cable run anyway and then yeah you don't have them showing up here for the 8vt or the EPS power but that's pretty convenient though if you've ever installed in a case let's say you've put your motherboard in you got your CPU Cooler on there you've mounted if it's an AIO you've mounted the radiator it's right here or if you have a big like multi- Tower air cooler that's blocking the cable and you go oh crap I forgot to plug in my EPS then you're taking off your cooler or your rat or something to plug it in it's definitely more convenient to just do it after the fact right there so it's definitely got some pros for it um so clean it is very clean I mean it would even cleaner and more stealthy if that were on all blacked out motherboard black graphics card and stuff but yeah I me but you you can imagine if it didn't have a power cable going for the power supply which is where the BTF form factor would be super clean for like the way Asus has it that'd be it there'd be no cables at all the exception of the fan cables so that's actually super super clean this isn't a case review for for MSI um seems like a pretty solid case though there's a lot of things I don't like about this case though for instance on the bottom if we look down here we do have a fan filter which appear this one on the bottom is magnetic this entire case really is intended for bottom to top airf flow you do have this motherboard tray area that you could utilize but I think for for cleanliness Aesthetics and stuff I would prefer this to just be like a blocked off plate or at least have a a Clean Plate to block it if you weren't going to use it as air flow have your three fans on the bottom blowing air up fresh air right to the graphics card and then obviously three exhaust fans on the top um and maybe a a re exhaust if you need to the top however so this is the top panel not the greatest paracity you got these long sort of C not cylindrical but these rectangular vents with a fairly thin opening versus the amount of blocked off area there is and you have this um this fan filter which is glued in so you can actually remove the fan filter personally if I were using the top as exhaust I would not want the fan filter here I would just want the best air flow for exhaust because the intake fans are responsible for the fan filtering or the air filtering not the exhaust yeah that's I mean it's it's pretty cheap and it came off in one old piece so there I'd much rather have this especially given how poor I feel like this ventilation design is it is a little raised as you can see so it's got this kind of a peak right here which adds a little bit of volume between the top where the fans are and the exhaust so that helps a little bit actually with getting that air exhaust out but I would prefer that to have maybe matched the same sort of a digital design it has going here for the rest of the filt or the rest of the ventilation this is the back panel right here again the same glued in well this just a pull on this one okay so this one at least can come out there it goes so yeah it's got this sort of a digital look to it with these little blocked out squares and stuff pretty neat looking I guess but it's like edgy it's like MSI is like bro we're edgy you know we don't just have dragons anyway I think it is actually pretty clean um and then obviously the case itself if your case supports it there is a list online you can find of cases that currently support uh project Z BTF I mentioned the F v270 we'll take a look at that one real quick in my opinion the cougar case is superior to the MSI one we just took a look at um but anyway the best way to identify if a case you're looking at is supports or supports the BTF SL project zero um form factor is if you see all these extra cutouts specifically this one these three this one this one this one the ones on the bottom are always going to be there for the front side connectors you know for every single motherboard so these bottom cutouts should always be there but this one this one this one this one and these three really tell us that this is a a um project z/ BTF case so I also wouldn't go purely off the list that's online the reason why I say that this case isn't listed on that list so look at the pictures that's the best way to truly identify if it's project zero um supported so I'm going to take that motherboard out real quick and throw it in here as well as with the white um 4080 right right here just to see how it looks in a more appropriate kind of an aesthetic setting for that motherboard one thing I want to point out too with the back connect stuff is every time I go to grab it I'm I'm used to grabbing it like this and it stabs me every time I grab it because it's like I tend to grab it from the bottom or the top and either way I'm getting stabbed so I just want to point that out it it's like I just did it again I just did it again no matter where you grab it from the back it's going to stab you like old habits die hard so there it is it's actually really really sexy um I do like the way this looks a lot it's just unfortunate that we would still have a 12volt high power cable by using um project zero motherboard again right now there's only two manufacturers currently I think that are making backconnect motherboards and that is uh MSI and Asus I'm sure gigabyte is on the horizon it'll be interesting to see how they do this though the downside about like Asus having the BTF connect format for the graphics cards is if you're just shopping and you're not paying attention that it says BTF on it then you'll get the graphics card and it won't slot in your motherboard because that tab will be there and there's no 12volt high power connector on it at all but there is what it looks like on the back side so as you can see yeah everything clears it's pretty standard format I mean as long as they stay Within These guidelines of where everything is supposed to land there you go and then because our power supply in this case is all the way in the bottom that'll take up some of the length we need now the thing to think about here is the depth of the back of the case is important because if you have a real thick cable that has to make a Bend and then bend again if it sticks out then it might push against your side panel real hard just keep that in mind the deeper like the uh dual chamber cases like the Leon Leo 11 type cases that have a big back chamber will be the most compatible cuz they have the biggest depth but this will have a little bit less available depth to it but I can I can tell that we have at least an inch right here which would be enough for a normal cable to be able to make the bend but that looks so good let's talk about whether not I recommend this though pros and cons of it pro it looks super clean and it doesn't matter if your power supply has maybe not the greatest looking cables um the downside of this though is the fact that requires basically building an entirely new setup so I really think it only appeals or should appeal to someone that's building a computer from scratch meaning because you're going to have to buy a new case to support the motherboard and then the motherboard obviously needs to be the the back connect style now if we're talking about Asus stuff that means you also are going to buy a new graphics card because you want to take advantage of the BTF connector for the graphics card as well in fact I personally like asus's implementation more and I know I've already said that and that's only because it truly gets rid of every cable going to the motherboard from the front side period and the extra connector though if Done Right alleviates any of the 12 power connector problems that we've seen because you have a rigid PCB making a direct connection just like the PCI Express slot so that's preferred in my opinion I think it alleviates some of those problems but now you're talking new graphics card new motherboard new case so that's why I say if it's somebody that's building the case from scratch or the the system from scratch it makes the most sense um also two if you want to upgrade to a BTF or back connect motherboard that's the overall ter terminology is back connect then um a new case is going to pretty much be required like I said there's not very many cases on the market probably less than 12 that actually support bconnect but this might become the future standard who knows I I think every case moving forward from 2024 and Beyond will probably support back connect because I know several case manufacturers were talking with right now on some upcoming cases that aren't out yet are all and that's the question I've been asking is does it support back connect and the answer is yes pretty much every case is being adapted in future revisions to support back connect stuff but it's a it's a new standard that's all about Aesthetics and if you're one of those people that's like I don't even want a window in my case I don't even care what the inside looks like I just want the function over the form then none of this appeals to you anyway and it's extra cost associated with it of course because the reason being if we were to see what the sales figures were or are of current back connect motherboards versus standard ATX layout motherboards I bet you it's like it's got to be low single- digigit adoption right now it's got to be but it might become the new thing in the future who knows and then companies that make custom cables are probably pissing their pants right now going uhoh what do we do because they're not they can't see our cables anymore so sometimes Innovation leaves some current stuff behind so I guess we'll just have to wait and see all right guys thanks for watching I just wanted to take you guys along for the ride of me taking a look at back connect stuff in person for the first time I know this debuted at like compex last year and then CES again and then obviously 2024 this stuff made it to Market and is like fully available now but even at Micro Center when we there shopping I didn't notice any of these motherboards there so I really am curious as to how widespread they are in availability um anyway there you go thanks for watching guys as always we'll see you in the next one\n"